Cusco to Puno - June 8th

5:00 a.m. wake up for our 6:20 a.m. pickup.  Today we ride the bus to Puno (10 hours) with 5stops including one for buffet lunch.  The group was except two new people most of the crew we've seen throughout the trip (26 total) along with a bus driver and Andres our guide.  With this trip the guides tend to be independent hires by Exotica and their offices coordinate everything including drivers.  They are separate from transfer helpers who great you many times when tickets etc. are to be handed out.  Every step you get asked do you have this or that to make sure no last minute issues.  For example this a.m. we had a shuttle bus that took us to meet with the full size excursion bus.

It is an adventure corralling this many people but they make it seem easy.  From our meet location, we headed out of Cusco and drover through the south end of town past the airport.  There were not structures in this area until after the airport opened.  Now 500k residents of Cusco.

About 1.5 hours out we stopped in a small town to visit a colonial cathedral.  The Anahuaylas church built in the early 1700's.  No pictures are allowed in these churches as the Vatican tries to protect the art work from the black market copiers.  Not sure I buy that argument, but the rules are strict.  Here is a link you can use to see pictures of what we viewed Church.  The amount of gold leaf on the wood ornate interior is mind boggling.  We've seen 100% silver alters and pipe organs still working from the 1700's.  Crazy to think how these were built along the Inca trail to indoctrinate the Incas and local tribes into the Catholic Church and Spanish rule.  Also, in each church there are unique things to help make the locals comfortable with indoctrination.  In this church there is a pregnant Virgin Mary picture, Inca artifacts and other use of mixed art forms.  There are two types of ceiling art.  One Inca based and one from the Spanish.  We learned the Spanish art had influence from Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Roman (prior occupations of Spain) mixed with Inca.  Unique church art compared to others around the world.  It has been one heck of a history lesson for sure.  We later learned our guide will be getting married in this church November 22nd.

After Peru's civil war (1980's to early 2000) in 2004 the government started for all communities a national and district flag raising ceremony every Sunday.  Also a constitutional change mandating capitalism over socialism.  The Incas actually used an early form of Socialism to create their empire that lasted until 2004.  Inflation during the war was 1,000% and we learned later why some buildings are not finished or damaged.  No welfare system in Peru.  You have to work to survive and tourism is key as 70% of the population is still considered poor.  Most of the wealth is in Lima.

Back on the bus for 1.5 hour drive through the valley along the river to an archeological site.  Here were ruins that illustrated a location along the Inca trail setup.  They would come in and tell the locals to giver up half their harvest and build centralized food banks, used to feed the army and supposedly locals if their crops failed.  Again another church onsite and like to many places in the world, pre-Inca, with Inca built on top of that and then Spanish Colonial building on top of that to erase the culture of the locals.

In the distance is the hut restored

Our guide all day Andres

The wall behind is the center wall to what would have been a ceremonial center with roof

What the storage huts would have looked like by artist

The next part of the trip was to head about 40 minutes for our lunch stop.  This was a buffet of local foods, that were all good except the Chicken dish.  The entire bus had a long table all setup for us and clean bathrooms for our third stop all with Banos!

Wonderful Buffet with lots of options

Inside setup for us.  We had the table on the right.

After lunch about 20 minutes out we hit the continental divide, which is the boundary of the Cusco and Puno districts.  Kind of like our states.  14k feet elevation and the highest part of our trip.  The views were stunning and of course the Peruvian ladies where there with their wares.

All the Inca ladies and their stuff to sell - at every stop

The Continental Divide is the division between Cusco and Puno Districts - looking this way towards Puno, which is south of Cusco and close to the Bolivian Border.

Great view of the peaks and snow

The peaks were 16,647 ft tall

Of course back on the bus for about another 1.5 hours to our final pit stop where they have a small museum and sell Exotic Coffee.  Beans that have been consumed and then pooped out by the animal, collected and supposedly fantastic.  I tried a cup and it was very strong, but not oh my god great.  Janie got an ice cream bar that was quickly melting as we loaded back up for the last 2 hours.

Not bad

If you ever want to try and find on the Internet

The largest town in Puno is a mining town called Juliaca (we will back as the airport for flight to Lima is located here).  This town is just flat out weird.  As you arrive several miles out there are about 52 large gas stations.  The town is located in a wide valley with mining around in the mountains.  The illegal mines built the gas stations to launder their money.  Gold is what they are mining.  The next largest industry is cement, so the number of buildings and large concrete fences around land and nothing else was dumb founding.  No picture or description will make it come together.  300k people live here and the drive through just went on and on and on.  Bolivia is literally a couple hours away and half of Lake Titicaca is in Bolivia.  A lot of trade between countries takes place in this area.  The next pictures are of a huge city open market.

From there we drove to Puno and as we arrived we climb the mountain up for a view of the city and lake.  It was a spiral drive down and the views again had to describe.  We couldn't get good pictures moving on the bus, so will try when we depart for the airport in two days.

Andres and Patrick (driver) sharing tips - bus we spent the day on

After getting to the drop off point we loaded into three vans to go to the three hotels.  One of them is across the street from where we are staying.  Casona Plaza is a cross between a Hampton Inn room and an old remodeled building.  So far all our hotels have been unique and clean.  Service is good and while not 5 stars more than sufficient for the trip.

Dining room for breakfast in the a.m.

We get our own beds for this leg

Bar near the restaurant

It was about  5:30 p.m. when we arrived at the Casona Plaza Puno for the next two nights.  We did venture out for dinner and it was so so.  Jeff got chicken wings and fried potatoes, Janie Lasagna that I swear had no noodles.  Of course more Pisco Sours and we met a nice lady from Lima who we chatted with as her friend helped us with the waitress.  Another day down and tomorrow is the Lake Titikaka excursion.